Education

The Oblate Sisters at home.

In 1945, the Reid family sold 600 East Green Street to the Redemptorist Fathers of North Carolina, who converted it into a school and a convent for the Oblate Sisters of Providence. (Saint Alphonsus Catholic School moved to Carroll Street circa 1948.)

The 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County, lists sisters Mary Juliana, Mary Antoinette, Mary Miriam, Mary Antonio, and Mary Cornelia in the house. Sister Mary Juliana was head of the convent. Three sisters were described as Catholic school elementary teachers, and one as a kindergarten teacher. The fifth, Sister Mary Antoinette, a native of Martinique and the eldest by twenty-plus years, did not work. (At least in the way defined by census takers.)

Wilson Daily Times, 9 September 1948.

School buildings sold to private owners.

In the fall of 1951, having opened several new brick school buildings across the county for African-American students, the Wilson County Board of Education moved to auction off its old wooden school houses, some of which had been built with Rosenwald funds. For several weeks, the Wilson Daily Times ran lengthy notices identifying the properties by name and metes and bounds.

Early in 1952, the Daily Times reported land transfers involving four of the former “colored” schools — Jones Hill, Stantonsburg, Bynums, and New Vester.

…

…

Wilson Daily Times, 3 January 1952.

Trustees buy school land for a church.

On 30 May 1913, the Wilson County Board of Education sold Frank Baines and Thomas Jones, trustees of an unnamed church, a one-quarter acre tract “in the northwest corner of the school lot, District #2 colored, Old Fields Township” to be used for a church.

Deed book 97, page 258, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Where in Old Fields was the District #2 colored school? Was this the land upon which Jones Hill Primitive Baptist Church was built?

Wilson Colored High School awards its first diplomas.

“For the first time in the history of Wilson students of the colored high school will be awarded diplomas ….”

Wilson Daily Times, 23 May 1924.

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The work of cemetery citizens.

Listen to this NPR story on our cemetery citizen counterparts in Connecticut here. (Shoutout to Adam Rosenblatt!)

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

A lot of people may spend Saturday mornings snacking with friends or running errands – or joining us here. But some head to a different location – a neglected cemetery. Meg Dalton reports from one cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, where volunteers are trying to breathe new life into this space.

SHERILL BALDWIN: Hi.

LAURA LYNN: Hi.

BALDWIN: Are you here for the cleanup?

LYNN: I am.

BALDWIN: If you want to just park so that we’re not blocking, that would be great.

LYNN: OK.

MEG DALTON: Sherill Baldwin walks down a leafy hill. Before her are rows and rows of white stones sticking out of the ground, about the size of a sheet of paper.

BALDWIN: I refer to them as, like, baby teeth because they are not coming in straight, necessarily.

DALTON: Those baby teeth are actually gravestones in a small potter’s field called Blake Street Cemetery.

BALDWIN: It’s where poor people were buried when they couldn’t afford it themselves.

DALTON: The cemetery is small, about an acre. The gravestones are obscured by long grass, overgrown weeds, fallen trees and a lot of trash.

BALDWIN: So I have bags and sticks for picking up things.

DALTON: This morning, Baldwin and two other regular volunteers are here for a litter cleanup at the cemetery.

BALDWIN: And I think the place to start is probably – maybe around the fence line, if you don’t see anything in the side…

GIULIA GAMBALE: OK.

BALDWIN: … And then along sort of the wooded area.

DALTON: Giulia Gambale has a bag in one hand and a trash grabber in the other.

GAMBALE: What is this? Triscuit? Oreo? Trident. See, they like having fresh breath, but just, you know, pick up after yourself.

DALTON: Gambale walks over to the side of the cemetery and spots something unexpected.

GAMBALE: Looks like somebody’s homework is over here (laughter). Little bit of homework. That goes in the bag. What else?

(SOUNDBITE OF UNDERGROWTH RUSTLING)

GAMBALE: I don’t know what this is.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNDERGROWTH RUSTLING)

GAMBALE: More homework?

DALTON: Another volunteer, Laura Lynn, already has a full trash bag.

LYNN: I found a lot of candy wrappers, potato chip bag wrappers, a empty bottle, an empty can, piece of glass that I just picked up.

DALTON: Today, they’re mostly picking up small pieces of trash. But at past litter cleanups, they found air conditioners, even tires. Neglected cemeteries like this one are common in many parts of the United States. But people like Lynn, Gambale and Baldwin are trying to bring new life back to these spaces.

They’re part of a growing social movement of so-called cemetery citizens. That’s a term coined by Adam Rosenblatt. He’s an anthropologist and author of a book about cemetery citizens. According to him, cemetery citizens are people working to restore and honor systemically neglected cemeteries. Some volunteers do this work for personal reasons, like Gambale.

GAMBALE: My dad actually worked in a cemetery for, like, his whole life. And I just, like, learned to really love and respect cemeteries – the history, the architecture.

DALTON: Baldwin says every person’s motivations are unique, but they have a shared goal – to reinsert these spaces into the social fabric.

BALDWIN: You know, everybody’s got different things and different ways of honoring those that have passed. Cemeteries are definitely sacred places.

DALTON: Baldwin hopes Blake Street Cemetery becomes a place not only for the dead but for the living.

For NPR News, I’m Meg Dalton in New Haven, Connecticut.

SIMON: And thanks to Luis de Leon (ph) for recording bird song for that story.

(SOUNDBITE OF J^P^N’S “PRIDEFULL”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Dear Ole Darden High, we thank you.

Last night, my father was posthumously inducted into the Charles H. Darden High School Alumni Association Hall of Fame. The honor was, perhaps, late for him, but right on time for us, coming almost exactly four years after his passing.

Everything about the evening filled my heart:

  • My sister and I and our families, as well as my aunt and cousins, lifting up my teary-eyed mother.
  • The gathering of my father’s 1978 and 1982 basketball state champion players (and surrogate sons) Buck Williams, Reggie Barrett, Oie Osterkamp, and George McClain, as well as his Rocky Mount coaching colleague Stan Bastian.

  • Seeing my father’s old friend and college teammate, Dr. William A. Birchette III, who was also an honoree, for the first time in maybe 50 years.
  • Hugging the necks of some of my father’s oldest friends, including Doris Ward Heath, L. Paul Sherrod, Ruby J. Jenkins, and Barbara Farmer, and other folks who make up my extended Wilson village of kin and friends, including Rev. H. Maurice Barnes, Dr. Michael Barnes, Renee Tabron Barnes, Tyree Barnes White, David Speight and family, Derrick Creech, Judy Bland, Linda Harris Barnes (who beautifully presented my father’s induction), Harry B. Harris, Gwendolyn Murrain, and Carolyn Barnes Kent.
  • Legendary 96 year-old Samuel Lathan serenading 99 year-old honoree Henrietta Hines McIntosh with his signature “Wonderful World.” When his voice cracked, he growled, “Find me, Bill,” and 93 year-old William Myers laid his fingers on the keyboard to do what he does best.
  • Alumni Association vice-president Andre Winstead shouting out Black Wide-Awake, quipping that folks were learning things their parents never told them. “We don’t want to know your secrets,” he said. “We just want to know what you did.”
  • Flipping though the program booklet to read the many congratulatory ads placed by people who loved my family and my father, ads whose fees fund scholarships for local students.
  • Listening to Dr. Kendral R. Knight, the decorated nephrologist whom I last saw when he was about five years old, bring laughter and light with his keynote speech,

“On behalf of our mother, Beverly Henderson, my father’s beloved wife of 61 years, I’d first like to thank all our family and friends here tonight and all those who supported my father’s nomination to the Darden Alumni Hall of Fame through letters of support, prayers, and encouragement. We also congratulate tonight’s other honorees.

“My sister and I were born too late to attend Darden, but we grew up in the glow of its glory and were indelibly stamped by its legacy. Our father was a member of the Class of 1952. In the trunk of his car, he kept a stack of papers listing every known graduate of Darden from 1924 through 1970 for anybody he ran into that might have wanted one. Our aunt and uncles were Trojans, our friends’ parents were Trojans, our neighbors were Trojans. We were young children when the Alumni Association was founded and spent many a happy Memorial Day running around Toisnot Park at the reunion picnic.

“Our father loved Darden. He was a smart boy from a disadvantaged home, whose teachers recognized and encouraged his innate leadership qualities. Educators like Charles Branford and John Wesley Jones were his mentors and later lifelong friends.

“Our father’s bio outlines the arc of his career and details the accomplishments that perhaps were of highest consideration for those tasked with selecting this year’s hall of fame inductees. He certainly was justly proud of these achievements. But our father’s guiding principle was to give others the same chance he’d been given as a boy walking the halls of Darden High School. To pour into young people the wisdom and guidance that builds character and self-esteem. To help anyone he could, whether a former student down on their luck or an ailing Trojan needing groceries or just a listening ear.

“I’m in touch with some of my high school classmates, but those relationships do not touch those forged in Darden High School’s class of 1952. Jean Wynn Jones lovingly spoke on the class’ behalf at his funeral, and several of his classmates helped carry flowers from the church. Two weeks later, his class celebrated its 70th anniversary, and they continued to lift us up as we learned to navigate the world without him. Our father’s induction into the Alumni Hall of Fame is as thrilling to them as it is to us.

“Thank you to the C.H. Darden Alumni Association for this great honor and recognition of one your most steadfast sons. We wish so much that he were here to receive it, but we gratefully accept on his behalf.”

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, May 2026.